An Immodest Proposal: Make talking heads declare their loyalties

Steven Brill, writing at Reuters, discusses a fascinating idea: When talking heads discuss politics on cable news shows, the networks should identify those individuals' potential conflicts of interest.
Brill cited the case of of a guest host's recent rant on MSNBC about the Koch brothers. According to a Koch Industries website:
"Karen Finney accused Koch of a connection with the tragic circumstances surrounding the Trayvon Martin matter. 'Who was the Typhoid Mary for this horrible outbreak,' Finney asked. She then stated, 'It's the usual suspects the Koch brothers ... the same people who stymied gun regulation at every point who funded and ghost write these laws.' Because we saw this dishonest story line developing and were concerned other extremists would pick it up, we put out a public statement the day before Ms. Finney's rant explaining that this story line was totally false and irresponsible." (emphasis added)
Yet Koch's Director of Corporate Communications Melissa Cohimia, in...(Read Full Post)